


Heir

by Spadejo9



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, Bodyguard Romance, Fantasy, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, High Fantasy, I made a map and a guide to the gods :)), M/M, Magic, Multi, Mutual Pining eventually, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Rating May Change, Reluctant companions to friends to lovers, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, WIP, Worldbuilding, epic fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25238794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spadejo9/pseuds/Spadejo9
Summary: As the Carved Valley mourns the death of the newly crowned king, Lysander finds himself accompanying a mage named Demetri who demands to be taken to the capital. As they travel, Lysander finds himself inexplicably drawn toward the mysterious circumstances surrounding his companion.
Relationships: Lysander (OC)/Demetri (OC), Original Male Character/Original Male Character





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Maps, Character refs, and doodles!! vvv  
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aqGlwzWnEUkCVCF5zownsyxXS5lcn84j?usp=sharing

“Elero Lares of Cahir, are you ready to take the oath under the loving eyes of the Five?”

The temple sparkled with impatience as the Archbishop held the censer in his gnarled hand. Sunlight filtered through the tall, open windows, glinting off the guards’ armor and casting an almost nauseating glow over the nobles as they waited impatiently for their new king. Perfume and incense clung to the heavy air, making everyone’s head swim as they judged the young monarch with critical hearts. The ceremony slogged on.

“I am ready.” 

“Will you defend the Kingdom of the Carved Valley with your heart and soul?”

Elero placed a stick of incense into the censer. The baptismal pool in which he kneeled mirrored his gestures. Eyes watched his robe shift with his gentle movements like starving wolves. “With the power of the Five, I will.”

“Will fairness and mercy be granted in your judgement like the Kings before you?”

Another stick was placed in the burner. Anticipation bore into his back, waiting for him to make a mistake. “With the hand of the Five, it will.”

“Will you do everything with your Blessed power to serve the ones Carved from the Earth and the Ocean?”

The temple seemed to bend under the weight of the oath in that solitary moment. It was the question that the audience had been waiting for. Whispers spoke of the unlucky Crown Prince and the numerous mage tutors and priests that left the castle walls with looks of disappointment and frustration. 

He was dubbed the Hated Prince by those who dared to listen to these rumors because he was seemingly abandoned by the Five despite the fact that he was blessed with other charms. However, most chose to ignore his charismatic heart, brilliant mind, and impressive military career.

Elero hesitated; how could he not? His words would affect the way his subjects would treat him. Even now, his hesitation screamed to the masses and confirmed the violent rumors that had haunted him his entire life: he was a Prince who could not use magic.

The crowd fell into waves of hushed sneers, reaching a consensus that ridiculed the Prince. 

But Elero lifted his head to meet the gaze of the Archbishop. His eyes burned with a fervent determination and passion that reassured the priests. There was no doubt he would make a fine king.

Elero placed the last stick into the burner and spoke loudly and clearly with newfound resolution. “With the love of the Five, I will.”

He continued to speak, revealing what he’d established in his heart ever since he was condemned to be a failure of a mage. “Even if I lose Their love, or never had it to begin with, even if the heavens collapse and the dreaded Pyderia resurrects, I will serve this kingdom and her people till my dying breath.”

The crowd silenced with Elero’s resolution. His strong and steady voice soothed the antsy nobles sitting on the wooden pews, their fears giving way to admiration under the confident and magnanimous presence of their new King. 

Elero closed the ceremony. “All I have promised today I will uphold, all under the eyes of the Mother, the Brother, the Daughter, the Son, and the Flower.”

The Archbishop placed the censer into the water and let the smoke rise from the smothered light of the incense. Gray tendrils curled in delicate paisley patterns and embroidered the empty air while lazy wisps intertwined as they danced around the king’s head. The Archbishop threw his voice across the room as he thundered his Will onto the grey ring around Elero’s plaited hair, forcing the smoke to crystalize into silvery arcs that decorated the king’s dignified brow.

Elero rose from the baptismal pool, knees and cloak soaked from the divine waters of the temple. It clung to him, begged him to never leave the glittering crests of ripples that echoed off the marble walls of the pool. It caught the light sparkling off of the mage-born crystal crown that adorned his head, dappling it against his clothes. The King turned to face his subjects who rose to meet his gaze.

“The Five has blessed us with His Holiness King Elero!”

The crowd roared as their new King gazed upon his subjects.

“Long live King Elero!”

He stepped out toward the aisle, cloak trailing in the waters behind him, ready for the procession to the throne.

“Long live King Elero!”

Another step forward allowed the crowd to see His Holiness bask in the light of the sun, casting his face in shadow.

“Long live King Elero!”

Reaching the first row, he looked to the left towards his father’s family, all resolute in their dedication. His uncle, Lord Faustus, though staunch and regal in demeanor, seemed as if something was building inside of him. Ever the diplomat, Lord Faustus hid this font of emotion, instead offering only the smallest of acknowledgements toward his nephew. 

Elero turned to the right and looked at his mother, the Queen Regent Mertia, who held back her smile in favor of an aloof expression. Her pride, though, overflowed and made her look radiant. His brother stood quietly beside their exuberant mother, spine straight, shoulders back, with not a single strand of hair out of place, a picture perfect Second Prince. He too was radiating happiness in his own reserved way. They locked eyes and exchanged a light hearted look before they tightened their jaws and scrunched their noses, remembering sunny days playing games in the gardens. Elero suppressed his mirth as he moved on. 

Suddenly, the oaken doors of the temple slammed open, revealing a man dressed in black armor, crest absent from his breastplate. Behind him stood a horde of others in similar attire. He lifted the iron sword in his hands.

“Death to the Hated Prince!”

The masses behind him roared in fury as the men ran toward the King.

Elero reached for the sword at his hip, a practiced move he made many times fighting on the Southern continent, but found his body locked in place. His body was paralyzed; not even his lungs could breathe or his pulse race.

Yet his mind was horrifically lucid, aware of the man in black who ran at full speed towards him, past the frozen nobles, past the guards who were stationed too far away, and past the shadows that crawled along the floor and clung to everyone like shackles.

Elero and the guests were marionettes that dangled helplessly from their wires, at the mercy of whoever controlled them. All they could do was watch the rebel thrust his sword through the stomach of their new king as in some perverse play.

Elero had no choice but to stare into the face of his murderer, his body still tied to the force that held him in place. The anarchist’s eyes were distant. There was no hatred or contempt as he placed a foot on the king’s body and shoved it off his sword. Blood bloomed from the wound as Elero lay like a tossed doll. 

“Murderer! Traitorous scum!” shouted Lord Faustus as he jumped up and pointed at the assassin.

It was then that the world broke free from its restraints.

The coup members moved in unison, organized into smaller factions as they spread among the pews. The guards and nobles finally reacted, screaming and scrambling wildly as the temple devolved into a chamber of slaughter. Men in black armor killed without reservation, blindly slicing away. Guards fought their way towards the Royal families. Metal and blood overpowered the scent of incense.

The Queen Regent let out the screech that had been building in her chest as she climbed over terrified nobles in an effort to reach her dying son. The Second Prince held tightly to her robe, pulling his mother away from the advancing wall of black armor, but the Queen was too fierce and yanked it out of his hands. All she could see through her panic was the body of her son lying on the floor, his head was thrown back and his spine arched. His hands moved to his stomach, touching the warm stains spreading across his cloak. The silvery crown was shattered into fragments, strewn throughout Elero’s ebony braids.

“Mother,”

She watched a swarm of black armor coalesce around him. The legion all uniformly drove their swords down again and again as thuds reverberated in the Queen’s ear.

“Stop! Stop!” The thuds continued, unaffected by her commands.

“Protect the Queen Regent and the Second Prince!” shouted Faustus.

Her screams grew higher, thundering her Will onto the blood that coated the floor. A wine red orb curled around her palm as it crudely manifested into a long blade, spiking as she screeched.

The guards barely restrained her before she kicked them off and rushed at the swarm.

Mad with panic, she tossed them aside, stabbing blindly into the black mass before they parted enough for her to see him.

King Elero lay in a mess of flesh and broken bones.

Lord Faustus rushed to the Queen’s side and pulled her back. The blood blade barely held its shape as her sobs were ignored by her brother-in-law.

The Lord charged boldly through the center aisle flanked by black armor and screaming innocents. He drew his sword and pointed toward the back of the temple. “To the monastery!”

They managed to reach the private living quarters of the priests and ran through halls and chambers searching for an exit. A group of the black armored men followed, rounding corners faster than they could decide which hall to head down. The Second Prince and his guards fell behind, and the black armors tackled them. Metal crashed as they struggled against the mindless mob. The Prince was pushed away from the fight, the soldier urging him to make a break towards the Queen and the Lord.

He sprinted, sword in hand as the mob broke through and rushed at him. They latched onto his arm, ignoring the blade cutting between unrelenting hands. They pulled in the Prince, eyes empty and blades eager.

“Mother!” He couldn’t die here. He couldn’t accept it.

“Demetri!” The Queen shrieked. “Run!”

The monastery thundered under a mangled thundering of a Will as a white hot beam of light enveloped the middle of the hall, sparking from the empty air before them, smashed through the walls, and shot off towards the East. When the light faded, the Second Prince was gone.


	2. Chapter 1

Mysterious noises in the Eastern Forest were not a particularly concerning detail for the locals. The chirps and rustling that hid in the darkened shadows of the birches and oaks sang with the farmers as they toiled away in the plentiful fields while midwives reminisced about the fae, known as the Children of Syanai, that would roam freely in the Carved Valley. But summers have passed since then and, like the snow they were born from, the fae seemed to have melted into the memories of the country. According to the scholars, the Children have reached their Great Hibernation, a period of attunement where the soul retreats to their place of origin. For the fae, their home lies in the snowy sheets of the north. For the Carved Folk, it is the earth and the water.

In the ancient stories about the Valley, Merti, the dark ocean and Han, the warm earth, had a love that grew with every foamy wave that ran to the soft beaches, giving birth to the Carved Folk, the ones casted from metal and water. Their high affinity with those elements was part of the many peculiarities of the inhabitants of the Carved Valley and frankly it explained how successful they were with agriculture.

Lysander was one of the few on this continent that wasn’t influenced by the call of the earth and water. After all, he was not of the Carved Folk; his yellow eyes, aquiline nose, and downy hair revealed the blood of the Migrants in him. And like his ancestors before him, he had a feverish wanderlust that compelled him to roam, experiencing the bounty this world offered. His mother sang songs that sounded like dreams as they migrated aimlessly around the Valley, searching for a place to rest for a few nights before they moved on. She told him stories of the lands his people had travelled; of ruby forests and barren deserts and of the taste of salt on long dead lips as caravans crossed oceans in search of new lands and new stories to discover. These were the tales he whistled when needed a reminder that the world held an endless beauty. And so he continued to live his nomadic life, long after he split from his family troupe and wandered from place to place as he observed the world from whatever arbitrary nest he settled into. 

He wasn’t good for much else, as he had often discussed with his crow, Polly. But society revolved around income and he needed to do something. His hands were too clumsy to pursue an apprenticeship, his mind too dull to pursue an education, and he was not nearly noble enough to have a fruitful military career. Settling in a village was also impossible for Lysander. If he stayed in one place for too long he earned dagger-like side glances from the locals. But he was proficient enough with a blade to not be assailed by the odd bandit or two, so he decided to make mercenary work his calling. At least he could still travel.

Polly would respond, berating him for belittling himself again, and Lysander would retort back with a witty remark, and the banter would go back and forth until he had the decency to realize that he was arguing with a crow in public like some sort of mad man.

Consequently, Polly was his only companion. He preferred the quiet of the forest and the birds harmonizing with the repetitive clodding and jangling of his cart. Nature kept its opinions to itself (usually), and was routinely unpredictable in its power. However, when Lysander saw a star fall from the sky in the daylight and land in his vicinity, he had a fleeting thought that perhaps this wasn’t a part of nature’s normal routine, especially when the sound of the crash sang like choirs of sirens and earthquakes.

Polly cawed into his ear as he took off in the direction of the crash, drawn to it like a fly to a lantern. Lysander stopped the reins and hurriedly hopped off to run after his friend, feeling his own heart tug in the direction of the crash.

Arriving at the scene didn’t give Lysander any particular revelations about the inner workings of the cosmos, not that he expected anything. He often heard scholars talk about the ashen remains that falling stars left, burning themselves to a crisp in their self destructive tendencies. Lysander expected to find some debris, and if he was lucky, perhaps a small crater where the dead star rested. Actually, it wasn’t hard to track down the site. The tree tops revealed trails of torn branches and missing leaves that led to the grove where the star landed. He thought it was peculiar that the trees weren’t lit from the fiery tails, but he rushed on out of curiosity and out of a partial desire to dismiss the studies of the snobbish academics. 

The trail of smashed branches ended in a humble oak tree that stood in the middle of a quiet grove, gently rustling its leaves, dappling the ground with spots of sunlight. At least, that was what most of its branches were doing. There was a fairly decent sized hole bore through its foliage that drew Lysander’s eyes.

Polly darted up, flying in and out, cawing incessantly at Lysander about what he found, causing the leaves to shake violently every time he went in. Lysander took it as his cue to investigate.

A white glow emanated from the body entangled in the branches above. Lysander was showered in falling leaves as the person scrambled to sort out his knotted mess of hair while also shooing away the very unhelpful crow. Lysander was a little disappointed to find a person, but shook it off when he could hear a melody of curses spill out from above.

“Hullo sir, do you need help?”

The rustling stopped. “Wh-who goes there?”

“Just a traveller. Do you need help?”

The glow weakened. “No, thank you. Move on, sir, there’s nothing to see.” The person resumed the fight with the tree.

Lysander eyed the man suspiciously, wheels spinning. “Are you fae kin? If you are, you’re far from the Great Forest.”

He huffed. “Fae kin? The Syanaikane? Does it look like I’m one of them?”

Lysander squinted to get a better look at the stranger. Skin like bronze and hair as black as the open ocean, the traits of the Carved Folk. He shrugged. “I did say fae  _ kin _ . Could be a distant relative, who knows? You have an affinity with magic, what with the strange glow you can apparently control. It’s a possibility. Either that or you’re from a Blessed family.”

The mage looked like he was about to retort, but held his tongue. Lysander sighed. Just his luck, a one sided conversation. The mage continued to struggle with their hair as they muttered inaudibly.

“Sir, do you need help?.”

The man contemplated his choices for longer than he really ought to have, but when he finally made his decision, he was resolute. “Yes, please.”

A short climb later, Lysander found himself face to face with his conversation partner, and he did not look like he was faring well. The richly woven tunic draped around his body looked like it was torn off at an incredible speed and tossed into a fire. The mage had cuts all over his face and red rimmed eyes that begged for moisture. His hair though, caught the worst of it. What once was an extravagant hairstyle (as far as Lysander could tell) now contained a birds nest of burnt, matted strands housing a clutch of leaves, twigs, and a branch that was currently restraining him to the tree.

Lysander carefully balanced his weight on a branch below and drew the knife at his hip and started hacking vigorously.

“So,” he drew out the vowel, “where’re you from?”

“Not from here.” was all he said before he pressed his lips in a thin line. Lysander felt curiosity creep into his throat, forming questions he wanted to ask about this Blessed individual. From what he remembers,  the majority of the Blessed were direct descendants of mythical bloodlines and wouldn’t shut up about it . Even those who were not of legendary blood felt the need to boast, especially when urged by the zealous Priests of the Five. To be Blessed was to have the love of the gods, a divine mandate to command the elements, so it was fairly interesting to see one who wasn’t parading it around. But Lysander wasn’t much of an inquisitor, so he refrained from prying deeper.

“Hmm.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t think it’s possible to untangle the rest of your hair. We’re gonna have to cut it all off.”

The man’s back went rigid.

Lysander tried to reason with him. “There’s no practical reason why your hair has to be this long anyways, you’ll be fine without it. And, I don’t know how, but the ends are all burnt to hell and back.”

The mage’s shoulders dropped a bit.

Lysander refrained from pestering him any further and continued to work at the branch. As soon as it was hacked off, they descended toward more solid terrain. The stranger was so keen on returning to the ground that he nearly fell, thankfully Lysander moved fast enough to catch him. Once their feet touched the forest floor, the stranger gathered the tattered remains of his tunic behind him and sat down on the forest floor. 

“Cut it off. Now. Before I have second thoughts,” he said.

Lysander took up his knife again and plopped down behind him. “Congratulations, you’re officially the second customer to experience Lysander’s barber shop.”

“Oh? And who’s the first?”

“Your’s truly, of course.”

The mage turned back to look at Lysander, eyes flitting around his hair before he grimaced.

Lysander grumbled as he sawed into the man’s wild hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to my original readers from my writing workshop class, without you guys I would not have had the energy to write as much as I did!!


End file.
